August 23, 2009

Moving Together in the SPIRIT

"A Quaker Church"

Sermon - August 23, 2009

First Friends Meeting
Song of Solomon 2:8-17
‘The Call’
Doug Gwyn

(good to be back – thanks to all who kept worship, pastoral care, committee work going so well over the summer – we are blessed with many gifted members/attenders who lead in many different ways in our congregation)

Last May, there a little drama in front of my house. One morning, as I left the house, a fledgling cardinal was in my yard near my car. And before I noticed it there, I scared it and it flew out into the street. It couldn’t fly very well yet. It could only flutter a few feet at a time. Well, I was concerned about the traffic, so I stood out in the street until the bird fluttered back to safety in my yard. Then I got in my car and went on my way to work.

As I drove over here to the office, I thought about what happened. I reflected on how I saw no sign of the parent cardinals, trying to help in some way. But of course, in those situations parent birds have no way of protecting their young. Then I remembered that all during that little drama, I was hearing a cardinal singing loudly and constantly up in the magnolia tree in my front yard. I realized that the little bird’s parent was doing the only thing it could to help. It was telling the young bird, “I’m here.” “Come back over this way.” Perhaps even more than that, the parent bird was singing the cardinal song. The song that little bird had heard since it hatched – maybe even while still in the egg. The parent bird was singing the song, saying, “Come on, be a cardinal – you can do it!” It’s the upward call that encourages and coaxes the fledgling to fly, to live.

Now, I realize that we humans read a lot into bird calls. Some hear mating come-ons, some hear territorial warnings, others hear songs of praise to the Creator. There may be truth to all of these. But this particular situation that regular cardinal bird call seemed to have a particular meaning. It led me to reflect on our human experience of calling and being called.

Anne has just read a passage from the Song of Solomon. The Song of Solomon, or Song of Songs, is a unique book of the Bible. It’s the poetry of human love – romantic love, even with erotic overtones here and there. The Song of Solomon affirms to us that romantic love is sacred too. Romantic love is built into us by the Creator as something beautiful and wondrous. It’s also true that the romantic love celebrated in the Song of Solomon is like God’s love for us – and like our longing for God. There’s a romantic dimension to our spirituality. That’s because there’s a spiritual center to romance. The passage Anne read just now expresses a woman’s joy at hearing the voice of her beloved. He calls to her and says, “Arise my love, my fair one, and come away; for winter is past, the rain is over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth; and the time of singing has come.” Sounds good! Romance and springtime are a powerful combination, as many of us have known in our lives.

Well, the voice of the beloved makes a powerful call upon our hearts. That’s true, whether it’s at the first blush of romance or after many years of time-tested love and committed relationship. We know that voice at the core of our being. Sometimes we can still hear that voice many years after we have lost that loved one. Some couples have a song that they consider ‘our song’ – a song that was popular when they first met. A song that speaks something of their love, or evokes the time and place when all that magic started to happen. But it’s the voice of the beloved that means the most. We’ve heard that voice say some wonderful, beautiful things. And we’ve heard that voice say some terrible, lousy, inconsiderate, downright stupid things. But that voice says it all. That voice calls us like no other. When that voice calls, something in us has to respond.

We talk about the voice of God, and we talk about God’s call. But most of us have not heard God speak to us in a voice like a human voice. I know I haven’t We may have heard a message from God through something that someone has said to us with a human voice. But God speaks and calls to us in very subtle ways. The Psalmist says, “Be still and know that I am God.” We know that hearing God’s call includes being still, being quiet at times, turning off all the electronic din and competing voices around us. That’s the easy part. It’s harder to turn off the din and competing voices inside. But to whatever extent we succeed, we are drawing nearer to God. We are more able to pick up the subtle overtones and undertones that God uses to speak to us. It’s something we work to develop and maintain over a lifetime.

I’ve heard that musicians can develop perfect pitch, if they’re not born with it. The method I’ve heard described is, first thing each morning, strike a tuning fork and hold it up to your ear. The tuning fork is tuned right at A on the scale – 440 vibrations per second. And if you tune into that tone first thing every morning, you may eventually know that tone even without hearing it. Then when you hear a note, you can name it, in relation to the A440 in your head. Our devotional lives are like that. The time we spend in prayer, in meditation, quiet waiting upon the Lord, in reading the Bible and other spiritual literature, in searching conversation with loved ones and spiritual friends – all these things help us tune into that wavelength in us that knows God. Like the young cardinal, who has heard that song at least from the day it hatched, I think we have always known that wavelength in our hearts. But we have to keep returning and retuning to it, amid the uproar and the distractions.

And like the parent cardinal calling from up in the tree that day in May, God is calling loudly and constantly to us – “I’m here.” “Come this way.” “Be a human – be a man – be a woman – by being my child – you can do it.” Maybe that’s all God is ever saying. To each of us, to all of us. But in particular circumstances, it has a particular meaning. Depending on where we’re at and what we’re doing at the time, “Come this way” means something specific. It means making particular choices, choosing to be with certain people, doing particular kinds of work in the world. It also means not going in some other directions, not hanging around with some people, not doing some things. You can work it into a long list of do’s and don’t’s. But the actual experience of God’s call, God’s leading is more specific and vital – in this particular situation, this way is where the life is, where safety is, where the joy and fulfillment is.

So there’s something universal to God’s call – it’s pretty much the same call going out to all people everywhere, at the deepest level of our hearts. But God’s call is also utterly unique – it speaks to us as unique persons, in unique situations. Likewise, God’s call is timeless – it’s been going out in all directions since the beginning of time. But it’s also timely – it’s what we need to hear at this present moment, for this particular dilemma.

So God calls to us, “I’m here.” “I am with you.” The most important thing God does for us is be with us. And the most important thing we do is be with God. Last spring, we looked at some stories of God calling to people in the Old Testament. One story was God calling to the boy Samuel. The other was God calling to the old man Abraham. In both cases, their response was to say “Here I am.” The rest of what God had to say to them was very important for their future lives. But they could hear it as they said :”Here I am.” They became present to God’s Presence – in that present moment. The doing of our lives generates out of our being with God. Likewise, whatever we do together – as a congregation, as families, as friends – is grounded in our being together in the most genuine ways we can find.

So let’s move now into our time of open worship. This is a time we can simply be together with each other, and with God. Let us take some time to be still and know God with us.

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